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Lyt når som helst, hvor som helst 

David Senra

Learn from history's greatest entrepreneurs. Every week I read a biography of an entrepreneur and find ideas you can use in your work.

This quote explains why: "There are thousands of years of history in which lots and lots of very smart people worked very hard and ran all types of experiments on how to create new businesses, invent new technology, new ways to manage etc. They ran these experiments throughout their entire lives. At some point, somebody put these lessons down in a book. For very little money and a few hours of time, you can learn from someone’s accumulated experience. There is so much more to learn from the past than we often realize. You could productively spend your time reading experiences of great people who have come before and you learn every time." —Marc Andreessen

Founders

Obsession is the engine of Nolan’s career. This episode examines Christopher Nolan’s life, working methods, and philosophy through The Nolan Variations by Tom Shone. 

Made possible by:

Ramp: ⁠⁠⁠https://ramp.com⁠⁠⁠ 

Applovin: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.applovin.com⁠

Vanta: ⁠⁠⁠https://vanta.com/founders⁠

⁠Add your email here⁠ and I will send you my top 10 quotes from every episode: https://davidsenra.substack.com

#426 How Obsession Built Christopher Nolan

This episode discusses Joseph Wechsberg’s 1966 book, The Merchant Bankers. Rather than recounting the histories of families like the Rothschilds, Barings, Hambros, Warburgs, and Lehman Brothers, I wanted to extract the principles they shared. 

Merchant banking is fascinating. It's a very distinctive form of entrepreneurship. There is an old-school way of doing business that appeals to me. 

The merchant bankers’ profiled in this book have a combination of:

 personal honor

 speed of action

 clear thinking

 independent judgment

 seamless webs of deserved trust 

 discretion

 and willingness to make unconventional decisions.

The founder of every merchant banking dynasty was a merchant before he was merchant banker. Once they discovered financing transactions was more profitable than physically trading goods, their real products became credit, judgment, information, advice, access, and—above all—trust.

Their greatest asset was not money. Their greatest asset was their reputation. 

Made possible by:

Ramp: ⁠⁠https://ramp.com⁠⁠ 

Applovin: ⁠⁠https://www.applovin.com

Vanta: ⁠⁠https://vanta.com/founders

Add your email here and I will send you my top 10 quotes from every episode.

#425 The Merchant Bankers

What I learned from reading Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel and Blake Masters (for the 3rd or 4th time) 

Made possible by: 

 Ramp: ⁠https://ramp.com⁠ 

 Applovin: ⁠https://www.applovin.com/⁠ 

 Vanta: ⁠https://vanta.com/founders

#424 Peter Thiel on How to Build a Creative Monopoly

What I learned from reading Honda: The Man and His Machines by Sol Sanders. 

Made possible by: 

 Ramp: ⁠https://ramp.com⁠ 

 Applovin: ⁠https://www.applovin.com/⁠ 

 Vanta: ⁠https://vanta.com/founders

#423 Soichiro Honda

What I learned from reading Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print, and Power by James McGrath Morris.

Made possible by: 

Ramp: ⁠https://ramp.com⁠

Applovin: ⁠https://www.applovin.com/⁠

Vanta: ⁠https://vanta.com/founders

#422 Joseph Pulitzer

What I learned from reading Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple's Greatest Products by Leander Kahney.

Made possible by: 

Ramp: https://ramp.com

Axon by Applovin: https://axon.ai/founders

Vanta: https://vanta.com/founders

#421 Jony Ive

What I learned from reading Steve Jobs in Exile: The Untold Story of NeXT and the Remaking of an American Visionary by Geoffrey Cain. 

Made possible by: 

Ramp: https://ramp.com

Axon by Applovin: https://axon.ai/founders

Vanta: https://vanta.com/founders

#420 Steve Jobs In Exile

Kelly Johnson’s “14 Points” read like a SpaceX operations manual — 60 years before SpaceX was founded. Kelly Johnson created Skunk Works, which he defined as: “A concentration of a few good people solving problems far in advance—and at a fraction of the cost—of other groups by applying the simplest, most straightforward methods possible to develop and produce new projects. All it is really is the application of common sense to some pretty tough problems.”

Kelly Johnson was a great engineer and system builder with genius for organizational design. His autobiography which he wrote when he was 75 years old is full of hard-earned wisdom from his 44 year career. 

This episode is what I learned from reading Kelly: More Than My Share of it All by Kelly Johnson. 

Made possible by: 

Ramp: https://ramp.com

Axon by Applovin: https://axon.ai/founders

Vanta: ⁠https://vanta.com/founders⁠

#419 Kelly Johnson: Skunk Works

What I learned from rereading Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike for the 3rd or 4th time. 

Made possible by: 

Ramp:⁠ https://ramp.com⁠

Axon by Applovin: ⁠https://axon.ai/founders⁠

Vanta: ⁠https://vanta.com/founders

#418 Phil Knight: Founder of Nike

What I learned from reading Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder by Arnold Schwarzenegger. 

Made possible by: 

Ramp: https://ramp.com

Axon by Applovin: https://axon.ai/founders

Vanta: https://vanta.com/founders

#424 Peter Thiel on How to Build a Creative Monopoly

Lyt når som helst, hvor som helst

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